Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in
Green Street, the rent of which was paid by James,
and sought a well-earned rest. The hour was
midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in the streets
to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him
return and stand against the rails of the Square garden,
back from the glow of the street lamp; to see him
stand there in the shadow of trees, watching the house
where in the dark was hidden she whom he would have
given the world to see for a single minute—­she
who was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the
meaning of the light and the darkness, the very beating
of his own heart.

CHAPTER X

DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE

It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that
he is a Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of
being one. He had not known it till after the
decisive step which had made him an outcast; since
then the knowledge had been with him continually.
He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all
his dealings with his second wife, who was emphatically
not a Forsyte.

He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure
the eye for what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on
to it, the sense of the folly of wasting that for
which he had given so big a price—­in other
words, the ’sense of property’ he could
never have retained her (perhaps never would have
desired to retain her) with him through all the financial
troubles, slights, and misconstructions of those fifteen
years; never have induced her to marry him on the
death of his first wife; never have lived it all through,
and come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.

He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like
miniature Chinese idols in the cages of their own
hearts, are ever smiling at themselves a doubting
smile. Not that this smile, so intimate and eternal,
interfered with his actions, which, like his chin
and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of
softness and determination.

He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work,
that painting of water-colours to which he devoted
so much energy, always with an eye on himself, as
though he could not take so unpractical a pursuit quite
seriously, and always with a certain queer uneasiness
that he did not make more money at it.